Away We Go: What Zach Braff Hath Wrought

A parable for tough times channels the pre-Scrubs adorability of a dreamy vision quest set to indie music

In the case of the new film Away We Go, he hath actually wrought a pretty entertaining couple of hours. Not that he directed the movie — that was Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) — or wrote it (Dave Eggers and wife Vendela Vida) or starred in it (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, above) or even chose the soundtrack (clearly the Wellbutrin-deprived nephew of Damien Rice).

But the brooding wanderlust and insistent profundity? It feels lifted from Braff's Garden State. You almost expect a rugby-helmeted Natalie Portman to ride through on a vintage motorcycle.

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Away We Go is about Burt and Verona, a quirky couple clad in equal parts Goodwill and the golden light of constant sunsets. They drive a beat-up Volvo. They stare vacantly. They have zany parents (played by Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara) and a kid on the way. When Burt's parents decide to move to Belgium a month before their grandchild's due date, the couple takes the opportunity to start over. They travel the country visiting various parables (friends, if you're splitting hairs), hoping to find a story to model their life on. Of course, eventually they do: their own.

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It's a tale of two lost people getting themselves even more lost until they're literally dreaming of something to pull them out of it. And like Garden State, it glorifies a tepid response to tough circumstances — set to indie music. Which is kind of nauseating. But adorable.